The Wells Report for Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Today's News, Analysis, Commentary & Debate
INDICTMENT:
FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP INDICTED AGAIN
USA:
A federal grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Tuesday for conspiring to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden, including the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, that a prosecutor described as "an unprecedented assault" on democracy.
"It was fueled by lies - lies by the defendant," special counsel Jack Smith said as the indictment was unsealed.
Trump, now facing his third criminal case, denied wrongdoing and denounced the indictment as an attempt to derail his 2024 presidential candidacy.
The indictment details multiple strategies Trump and his allies employed in an attempt to overturn his election loss.
One of the methods Trump used in a bid to steal the election involves a “fake elector” scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s victories in key battleground states.
Trump also deliberately deceived his supporters and directed them to march to the Capitol in an effort to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers to reject the certification of electors, the indictment alleges.
Six co-conspirators are referenced in the indictment but are unnamed. Among those co-conspirators is Jeffrey Clark, a high-ranking Justice Department official in the Trump administration.
TWR: With every (bogus?) Trump indictment, every Biden free-pass/sweetheart deal, every case of Unwarranted Spying on US Citizens, every Suspension of Constitutional Rights…More “conspiracy theories” are proven:
The Deep State, Two Tiers of Justice, The Federal Government’s pathological imposition of Totalitarianism.
The American People will simply not tolerate much more of this.
REPUBLICANS DECRY ‘ABUSE OF POWER’
FOX:
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York told Fox News Digital Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment against Trump marks "yet another dark day in America as Joe Biden continues to weaponize his corrupt Department of Justice against his leading political opponent Donald J. Trump."
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Digital the "double standard is baffling" to him. "How can the justice system recommend a plea deal for Hunter Biden but continue to pursue President Trump this way?" Scott said. "It’s like we are in [an] authoritarian state."
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital the "news of another indictment against President Trump is no shock ahead of 2024." "The left knows they can’t beat Trump amid Biden’s failures, so they’re trying to take him out with criminal charges," Blackburn said. "Biden’s abusing two tiers of justice to target his greatest political opponent."
TWR: More excellent words from Washington Republicans. Well said…Now, what are any of you actually going to do about it?
JAN 6 COMMITTEE APPLAUDS INDICTMENT
USA:
House lawmakers who served on the Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol celebrated - for the third time - a grand jury indictment of former President Donald Trump.
If their applause on Tuesday brings a feeling of deja vu, there's good reason. Many of the details in the indictment are familiar: They were unearthed by the special congressional committee that investigated the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
The federal grand jury accused Trump of organizing a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden, including the insurrection that a prosecutor described as "an unprecedented assault" on democracy.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Jan. 6 committee chair wrote on X, "Today’s charges are consistent with those the select committee referred to the special counsel last year," he wrote. "Successful prosecutions will not only bring accountability but also help prevent something like January 6th from ever happening again."
TWR: When the January 6 Committee was first empaneled, I was actually interested in what they would find.
When they succumbed to their own sociopathic politics and become just another High-Tech Kangaroo Court, I was disgusted.
But I was sure that if any of their work made it to a Court of Law, their case would crumble before the very Rights these degenerate committee members cynically espoused…And that will indeed occur. (Although it may take a Supreme Court Decision.)
So while they celebrate yet another concocted “Indictment” of the former President they worked so hard to sabotage during his term, they should take note of the Karmic Promise…What goes around, comes around.
PENCE BLASTS TRUMP AFTER LATEST INDICTMENT
FOX NEWS:
Former Vice President Mike Pence did not parse words when reacting to former President Trump's indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday.
In a statement released before yesterday’s Trump's indictment on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Pence accused Trump of putting himself over the Constitution, and said a Trump candidacy would serve as a distraction from President Biden's "disastrous" record.
"The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions. As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter
"Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States," Pence said. "I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment."
TWR: There was a time when Mike Pence was clearly the most polished, professional politician anyone ever saw. Something has happened…
While still believing in his constellation of political skills, his recent use of them has sealed his political fate. It’s truly hard to see him make such embarrassing political miscalculations.
BIDENS:
HUNTER BIDEN SCANDAL 'LEADS UP' TO PRESIDENT
NEWSMAX:
Senior adviser for former President Donald Trump Jason Miller told Newsmax on Tuesday that the ongoing scandals of Hunter Biden are "leading up" to his father, President Joe Biden.
"We have testimony now that Joe Biden joined over 20 phone calls of Hunter and his shady foreign businessmen," Miller said during an appearance on "John Bachman Now." "This whole thing stinks. I think it leads all the way up to Joe Biden."
According to Miller, Monday's testimony by Hunter Biden's business associate, Devon Archer — in which he said Joe Biden spoke with his son's foreign associates more than 20 times on the phone, and made personal appearances at several "meetings" with those people — shows that the president lied in 2019, when he said he never discussed his son's business dealings or had any knowledge of what he was doing with the foreign entities.
TWR: Again, another example of the Republican Party issuing brave words, while being scant of brave work.
Just talking a good game is not sufficient. This time they must actually do something about it.
OPED: LIZ PEAK DESCRIBES IMPEACHMENT STRATEGY
FOXNEWS:
Republicans need to roll forward with impeaching Joe Biden, but slowly. Caution is essential because:
In order to convince the American public that Joe Biden is guilty of corruption, the GOP needs to produce indisputable evidence. Right now, Kevin McCarthy’s party is (unusually) polling ahead of Democrats on the generic ballot, a solid indicator of electoral success; let’s keep it that way.
An impeachment proceeding could divide Republicans. That will not help win the 2024 election.
If the GOP convinces the public that Joe Biden took bribes and sold out his country, he will have to exit the 2024 race.
The longer the investigation into his alleged corruption goes on, the less time Democrats will have to promote an alternative candidate.
In that scenario, Kamala Harris steps in, a win for the GOP.
TWR: This is a well thought out, on-point plea for the Republican Party to continue their so-far successful investigation of Biden Family business dealings, but do so respectfully of President Biden’s Due Process of Law, then move forward in a deliberate, sober, careful way.
Hopefully, House Republican Leadership will read, then heed this perfect advice.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
FACEBOOK FILES REVEAL DEPTH OF WHITE HOUSE ATTEMPT TO CONTROL COVID NARRATIVE
FOX NEWS:
White House officials pressed Facebook for special access to tools to target vaccine-hesitant users and berated Facebook employees for not sharing enough data, contradicting White House claims at the time.
According to internal company communications viewed by Fox Business, the White House asked Facebook if they could provide government agencies with special access to tools to target users.
"Since it’s a global pandemic, can we give agencies access to targeting parameters that they normally wouldn’t be able to?" President Biden’s digital director Rob Flaherty asked.
The idea came up in a conversation about how to convince people worried about side effects around the COVID vaccine to take it.
"If someone in rural Arkansas sees something on FB, it’s the truth," Rowe said. "What we need is help pushing back on the myths."
The idea that "Big Brother" was snooping on people’s Facebook conversations is something the White House brushed off at the time when FOX’s Peter Doocy asked about it in July 2021. Doocy asked then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki at the time if the government was "spying" on people’s profiles looking for vaccine misinformation.
Psaki claimed "This is publicly open information, people sharing information online. Just as you are all reporting information on your news stations".
Doocy followed up, "The big concern though, I think, for a lot of people on Facebook is that now this is Big Brother watching you."
TWR: It’s amazing to see the intractable traps Facebook created for itself…
They first allowed personal politics to invade their professional endeavor.
Then, they were seduced by the Deep State becoming its proxy for the imposition of plain censorship of the We the People.
Now, Facebook’s collective ego cannot allow self-admission of their Anti-American crime. They waited for a Congressional Subpoena…And so lost control of their own sad story:
SMOKING-GUN DOCUMENTS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS ON BEHALF OF WHITE HOUSE: JIM JORDAN
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Thursday shared what he called "smoking-gun documents" proving Facebook censored Americans on behalf of the Biden administration in a lengthy social media thread.
Jordan wrote the all-caps message, "THE FACEBOOK FILES, PART 1: SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE," before diving into the lengthy thread reminiscent of the so-called "Twitter Files" used earlier this year to disclose once-internal documents given to journalists once Elon Musk bought the social media platform.
"Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House," Jordan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
TWR: So, how will Facebook be treated by the Leftists they first supported, then used them as ‘Useful Idiots’?
They will be thrown as far under the bus as required to absolve the Left’s villainy.
Good Luck, Mark.
DEEP STATE:
FBI INVESTIGATES SPYING TOOL, DISCOVERS THEY’RE USING IT
NAT PULSE:
An inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into a government contractor using Israeli spy software to monitor U.S. citizens has discovered it was doing so on behalf of the FBI itself.
Reporters discovered that Landmark spy software developed by Israel’s NSO Group, blacklisted by the Joe Biden government as a national security threat in 2021, had been purchased and deployed by government contractor Riva Networks later the same year.
It is now known that one of Riva Networks’ clients was the FBI.
Like the White House, the FBI claims it had no clue the contractor was using Landmark to geolocate U.S. citizens in Mexico without their consent, and Director Christopher Wray has cancelled the contract.
Yet reporters seeking more information about the secretive nature of the bureau’s dealings with Riva Networks are now being stonewalled.
TWR: Let me get this straight…
First: The FBI, once regarded as the greatest investigative, law-enforcement institution in human history, didn’t know they using spy software from NSO Group; a National Security Threat?
Second: They discovered they were illegally monitoring Americans with this spyware, only after their own inquiry?
Third: Director Christopher Wray then cancelled the contract.
Does that just about cover it? No. Here, a few questions:
Was the FBI was duped? Was this simple incompetence? The answers are both no. The FBI knew exactly what they were doing…Ask yourself:
Who originally signed the spyware contract?
Bonus Point: Why would the FBI be engaged in warrantless spying on We the People in the first place?
FINANCE:
THE US TAKES A HIT TO CREDIT RATING
CNNBiz:
Fitch Ratings downgraded its US debt rating on Tuesday from the highest AAA rating to AA+, citing “a steady deterioration in standards of governance.”
The downgrade comes after lawmakers negotiated up until the last minute on a debt ceiling deal earlier this year, risking the nation’s first default.
In a meeting with Biden administration officials, representatives from Fitch Ratings also highlighted the January 6th insurrection as a significant concern as it relates to US governance, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. But the credit agency did not mention the insurrection in their full report on the downgrade.
Explaining its rationale, Fitch pointed to “the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.”
The downgrade has potential reverberations on everything from the mortgage rates Americans pay on their homes to contracts carried out all across the world.
The move could cause investors to sell US Treasuries, leading to a spike in yields that serve as references for interest rates on a variety of loans.
TWR: We’ve been telling our Government to balance its books for decades. Like so many other things We the People ask for…The answer was No.
With this downgrade, Washington has been served notice:
The Great Seal of the United States is about to have a new title: The Great Gatsby.
INDEXES SHRINK ON DOWNGRADE NEWS
CNBC:
The Fitch Ratings downgrade of US Credit dragged the Stock Markets into negative territory today.
The Dow Jones was off 348.16 Points, nearly one percent. The S&P 500 had its worst day since February, losing 63.34. The NASDAQ lost 310.47 points…An eye-watering 2.17%
TWR: According to polls the American People believe the most important issue for the 2024 Election is the Economy…As usual, we are right again.
Jon-David Wells, Host - The Wells Report c: 2023
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